Monthly Archives: August 2010

The question that features the most on almost everyone’s lips is incredibly a simple “Where Are You?” Despite the fact that in many cases the answer to that would be a simple one, there are several situations where you may not know how to describe a perfectly new location to your friend. Many a times, sending detailed information about where you are to a bunch of people who ask you that question around the same time can be irritating even. It has been ages and we’ve hardly paid any heed to this irritating exercise of dissipating your whereabouts up until recently where the geo-positioning cellphone application, echoecho was conceived. This wonderful application automatically lets people know where you are using the in-built geo positioning feature in your cell phone.

This wonderful application has had several updates since its release in the mobile software market. The app has now released version 1.7 recently and one new feature has caught the eye tremendously. The release features an auto reply option in itself. This feature works on the simple idea that when people request for the location of a person using this application, a request will be sent to the corresponding entity’s mobile phone. The application will now check the settings that the consumer has put into the application and instead of asking for permission will send details of the person’s location using the information that the user must pre-set about which of their address book contacts should be allowed to draw information from their phone about their location.

This feature is switched OFF by default. However, it is an immensely useful app and can be very advantageous for users. The only problem is the lack of publicity for this software. If this issue about spreading the word on this application is resolved, this wonderfully conceived application has the potential to set the phone apps market abuzz. Until then we look forward to enjoy more releases with more impressive features from echoecho.

Fotopedia Heritage, the new app for iPad and iPhone users, now offers access to over a few thousand works by photographers who are a part of the Fotopedia community bringing together more than 20.000 photos locating close to 3.000 places of interest throughout World Heritage locations. Fotopedia is now officially a collaborative encyclopedia of photographs from all over the world. Fotopedia Heritage was developed by a team headed by Jean-Marie Hullot, who is the former CTO of American computer company NeXT and has been a part of Apple's application release division.

According to Fotopedia, as this incredible app was coded, the entire Fotopedia community placed and screened the photos carefully in order to ensure a high level of relevance and immaculate quality. Fotopedia CEO Jean-Marie Hullot also says that their much awaited application has now reinvent the whole coffee table photo-book experience as the app merges the whole concept of a limitless number of photos with equally vast and needless to say, relevant information.

Fotopedia Heritage allows iOS platform device owners to navigate through content easily, with the help of tags, and at the same time learn about every place they search for by going through rich descriptions provided by UNESCO and complemented by Wikipedia.

Initial test on the unlocked iPhone4 confirm this app is bug free despite the small glitch that displays information on this app on a small part of the iPhone screen. However this app was intended to be more appropriately for the iPad in the first place. Users also have the added benefit of a proper and interactive map service on this very map. TripAdvisor has provided travel information for all the World Heritage Location anyone may find interest in, for a trip.

The only issue with this app is that it requires either iOS 3.1.3 or a later version to function fully. Otherwise it is compatible with all iOS devices.

AlwaysOnPC recently unleashed its new version the Virtual PC app centered around the Android and iOS platforms. The feature release comes with about forty pre-installed programs that include a mobile office suite and the Firefox browser with enabled Flash functions. AlwaysOnPC aims at putting the incredible capacities of a desktop machine into the narrow dimensions of an iPhone, iPad and Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Unlocked Android phone.

The application provides users with a mix of tools that help productivity and services that enable users to almost discard their desktops. While Open Office allows users to copy, paste and edit through apps, and also save the most common types of files like Word (.docx or .doc), PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx) and Excel (.xls, .xlsx), and much more.

The absence of a Flash enabled environment has always been a highly debated problem put forth to Apple and this issue continued to disappoint anticipating users, up until now. AlwaysOnPC finally delivers an unlocked iPhone4 and iPad Flash Player bundled with Firefox so the users can browse the whole Web without any hitches on the device, at long last. Although full audio support or even motion are still not enabled on this device, with Apple working on the aforementioned improvements, customers can still enjoy full access to sites like Google Analytics, Facebookgames, and a lot more from their device.

Hosted by "Internet Cloud," AlwaysOnPC actually offers a proper encrypted SSH protocol connection during data exchange on devices. This provides total solid security along with the promised high levels of performance for several common tasks. For example a user can now access large files, say maybe a PDF file, or even PowerPoint decks and of course Excel Spreadsheets of as much as 100Mb size or even more from an email attachment, a storage service online such as Megaupload at speeds up to more than ten times sooner than the other competing mobile service providers. A gem of a release indeed!

The Unlocked iPhone4 exclusively was marketed by AT&T for time immemorial(a little over three years in the mobile world) in US, but that is short lived, in the wake of the rumor of a iPhone launch by Verizon in few years. If/When the Verizon iPhone is really launched; Big Red can cause a big setback to AT&T by help of their self proclaimed superior wireless network. A new study reveals that a large part of the existing users of iPhone on AT&T are keen on replacing them with an alternative Apple Smartphone carrier.

The numbers, though not that surprising, are very significant. According to the study from Morpace, 1 out of 3 AT&T iPhone users are considering changing loyalties to handsets on another carrier. A solid 34% want to jump ship, and 47% of the current users are ready to consider a Verizon alternative of their handset of choice. This is not at all good for the carriers’ bottom line when Apple will start reaching out for its iOS-powered Smartphone to the various other carrier partners.

The survey also categorizes the customer intent by carrier.20% of T-Mobile customers are “somewhat” or “very likely” to opt for an Apple Smartphone on Verizon. The same thing applies for 22% and 23% customers of Sprint and AT&T respectively. But surprisingly, 51% of Verizon customers are waiting for a handset powered by iOS which is certainly the icing on the cake.

Even more fascinating is the possible impact an iPhone on Verizon will have on the other Smart phones offered by Big Red. At present, the majority of most compelling Android Smart phones are claimed by Verizon in US. A lot of their resources are invested into marketing Android phones like Unlocked Motorola Droid X and Motorola Droid 2. Considering the arch rivalry between Android and iOS in the mobile space, it is worth wondering how newcomer Apple will overcome Android, especially if it is more powerful than AT&T’s iPhone 4.

Let us just suppose for a few moments that the original three episodes of the ‘little known’ space saga by the name of Star Wars did not exist so that we could be able to concentrate and focus on the other aspects of the films. However, the original trilogy, was, is and will always be cherished, treasured and loved by the millions and billions of its huge base of fans scattered all over the globe.

It doesn’t matter who your favorite character might be, or even if you are inclined towards Star Trek, you are sure to admit that the garbage bin shaped little metal midget, and popular as the R2D2 is one of the most loved and acknowledged characters in the history of science fiction. The little creature, which has the capability to stream video messages just by using its tiny eyeballs, that has the enormous strength to hold anything, including a spacecraft, and so much more is something that makes. And that is one of the reasons why the Limited Edition R2D2 Motorola Unlocked Droid 2 for Verizon Wireless will, by all probability be one of the most impressive and headline making device that will be released in all of the year 2010.

However, no details are available as of now about the exact date of its release or how much this little gem of a device will be priced at, but sources close to the company reveal that phone will not cost more than the usual $200 for the two year contract, albeit after a discount of $100, not that it would matter too much because even if it cost a bucket load of cash, there are plenty of geeks obsessed with Star Wars who would go to any extent to get their hands on anything even remotely associated with it.

The Simon Property Group, that current owns more than 350 malls in the United States of America has teamed up with a startup from Silicon Valley called Shopkick in order to devise a way to make cell phone coupons work.

Starting from August, around 25 malls in the cities of Loa Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York will have devises installed that will help Shopkick in its effort to make its cell phone coupons work. The malls owned by Simon Property Group, have on an average, 140-150 stores and the shops that will be participating in this scheme will have to have speakers installed near its entrance, which will emit a high frequency sound that is beyond the audibility limit of humans, but the frequency will match that of the microphones in mobile phones. When a customer walks by the store, they can activate the application, which is by the way, only available on unlocked iPhone4 and Android powered devices, and will start to receive points, discount offers, news and updates about what the shop has to offer and so much more that the shop could use to get you inside and cajole you to part with your money.

Four other big guns in the retail business are also using the latest application from Shopkick, the most recognizable being Macy’s Big Buy, although the other three wished to remain anonymous. Macy’s will have the technology up and running in almost 25% of its store in one week in the test phase and if the experiment goes well, they will expand it to the other stores as well. Sources reveal the Macy’s stores in San Francisco might be the first ones to have this technology.

However, the skepticism about it is still there and experts believe that it will drive young people to shop online even more.

It’s official! Finally BlackBerry has answered all the prayers from its ‘worshippers’ and released the new Unlocked Torch 9800, the vertical slider and it will be going live on AT&T. it packs quite a punch, it must be said, for RIM and also the new BlackBerry 6 operating system. The Torch, however, has been hailed as one of the best offerings from RIM in quite some time and the news time that it is getting is nothing short of what it deserves.

The new device is very impressive, to put in short. The full QWERTY keypad was a cause for concern for many users, but after prolonged sessions of testing it, it has been found to work just fine. The slider display also does not cause any sort of hindrances to the QWERTY keypad in no way, and once you open the keyboard to use it, you will find that the device balances nicely in your hand as well. The BlackBerry 6 also fares quite well and although it is not much different from earlier renditions of the Operating System, the users of BlackBerry unlocked cell phone will more or less be satisfied with the total package that the company is offering them.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the Touch is the Touch screen display. RIM’s previous touch screens do not have a very good reputation, but the Torch does it no harm and rather enhances it very much and puts it on the same category as the iPhone or such devices. The response of the display is very prompt and the latest pinch-to-zoom feature is very much a delight to use and is very much like those on the iPhone4 unlocked handset.

AT&T is offering the BlackBerry for $199 and here is the real test for the phone and everyone is eager to see how it actually fares in the market.

The people at Nokia and Apple were expected to provide genuine haptic feedback technologies to devices such as the iPad and iPhone that would allow feedback on the touch screen, which can be perceived by the sense of touch and also can emulate the real sensation of variable surfaces and buttons. A demonstration from Senseg displays Apple’s iPhone4 and iPad working with Senseg E-Sense which is a new type of feedback technology. Senseg E-Sense has used electrical charges and the feel of a touch screen has completely changed. It is highly possible that iPhone makers are seriously considering localized haptics to use in their yet-to-be released, new-generation iDevices because the demo was shown on an unconcealed iPad. Now first-timers are probably wondering what exactly “tactile feedback” and “localized haptics” mean. The word “haptic” originated from the Greek word “haptikos” which means something pertaining to the sensation of touch. It originated from “haptesthai”, the Greek verb which means to “touch” or “contact”.

Tactile feedback is a term that is used in describing any sensation which is touch-based. In the world of unlocked smartphones the term has a range of descriptions, from the way a cell phone vibrates to show that a key is depressed to the way a finger presses to click a button. Often “tactile feedback” is replaced by the word “haptic feedback” as they are interchangeable words. However, the future lies in “localized feedback”. Handsets which have genuine haptic feedback technology installed in them would not simply vibrate when someone presses a key. Vibration feedback technology, though useful to some extent, is crude and a mere compromise till the grand entry of localized haptics is witnessed. With the advent of gen-next haptic technology touch screen would be able to create variable sensations when a user touches the display surface. The changes would be localized, restricted to the area under the direct touch of the finger.

Valentine’s Day may be long gone, but the spirit of love seems to still be there with Sprint, who are giving their Premier Customers the opportunity to reserve their own Unlocked Samsung ( Epic 4G). While others will have to wait for some time to get a chance to be able to reserve the Epic 4G for themselves, this is one opportunity that the Premier Customers of Sprint would just hate to pass on. If you are one of those few, lucky enough to be Premier Customers of Sprint check the inboxes of your e-mail accounts as soon as you can, so that you don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Now, we do know that many of you technology freaks out there have been eyeing the Epic 4G ever since the announcement of its launch. Sprint has put out a comparison just for those fans, which pits the Samsung Epic 4G and the HTC EVO 4G. Although Android is the common feature of both the devices, EVO trumps the Epic with the latest version of the Google platform on board, and is also WiMax enabled. The Epic has a QWERTY keypad that slides out where as the EVO’s keypad is on board the screen itself, that functions on touch. The EVO, however, will cost you around $199, which is not so bad for all the features that it offers. Again, the Epic 4G will push you back by $249, (the rates are after rebate) which raises a very basic question. Is it worth paying the additional $50 for a phone that just offers a few extra features and because it is a variant of the Samsung Unlocked Galaxy S? Critics say it would not be a bad investment either; however, a few more adjustments would have made it much more tempting.

It seems that Verizon, like Sprint, will charge an extra amount between $10 and $15 for using the data service of 4G LTE of the carrier-which is to be added to the data plan that exists in case of compatible devices. It is not at all surprising for us, but the reaction of the customers towards this drastic rise in fees will be interesting.

It is expected of Verizon to begin bringing 4G network of nascent to laptop (through data cards of USB) and after that the LTE enabled Unlocked Smartphone which will be in the market sometime during the initial half of the year 2011, if possible in the month of May. Motorola and Verizon are also rumored to launch Android Tablet that is FiOS-enabled before the end of the year. Since it will be a very expensive affair to launch a worldwide network, Verizon actually justifies the fee that is extra. But we are bound to agree that these types of infrastructural roll outs are much expensive, even more than T-Mobile USA’s upgrades of software.

The John Killian Verizon CFO said at the conference of Oppenheimer & Co. in Boston in this week,” Customers will pay for quality and premium service and premium speed”. The users will be facing the similar dilemma they faced in case of Sprint when it offered users of EVO 4G a service of premium not even available in the area you live in. It is pointed out by Verizon that even if the customer is not living in any 4G area, Sprint charges monthly premium of $10 for 4g Smartphone uses of EVO. Therefore, the 4G premium has link with to not just performance, but also coverage.

Thanks to that, AT&T and Verizon are nearly same I case of monthly bills, but because of this new fee hike; Big Red will become the carrier who is most expensive in US. T-Mobile has a need to upgrade the HSPA+ network of them to keep up with others.